Will TV ever be ad-less?

[Mikaya]

The title says it all. That moment when you're on the edge on your seat watching an intense thriller movie or finding out who wins the jackpot in a gameshow, and bam! the 5 min break comes up to ruin it all. It really annoys me, personally. They make shows and movies longer than they need to be, and who cares about ads anyways? They only show them, so companies can give the channels an income - in exchange for potential customers, even if they're the biggest/well-known company in the world. Kind of pointless if ya ask me.

Enough ranting though, do you think TV will ever be free of ads? Give reasons for your answer.

 

[TheYESDragon]

I mean, the BBC have no adverts but of course, we pay more for the good ol' TV license and online TV services, such as Netflix, I believe won't impose adverts on you (or they do, but they're most likely in between watching episodes of things) and really, I think that adverts are needed for shows. Like, the timing of some are downright stupid (like the movies, I can't count the number of times they've cut it during an action scene and I've been like "wut pls no" or an emotional scene which is then followed by a humorous advert) but of course, take away the majority of advert money from TV shows and the budgets will probably decrease a lot.

I mean, y'know, it's probably a case of 'lesser of the two evils' or 'better the devil you know' (I don't even really know if these idioms apply, but hey, it sounds about right and you get what I'm saying) as you would rather have to sit through adverts so that TV networks can get their money to produce better TV shows; and hey, you can always skip through adverts if you have a DVR (or whatever else you can use to record TV shows and watch at a later date, even 15-20 mins later is ideal).

I think TV will always have ads, unless TV services which you pay a subscription for take over, but would you rather have to pay a subscription (or possibly a couple, as Netflix won't have all the shows you want) or have to sit through (and you can avoid this at times) adverts where you can just distract yourself for a few minutes? I know what I'd rather take .

 

[MindzEye]

I'm agreeing with @TheYESDragon's summery of advertisements. (Heheh. Blipverts.) But of course, if they switch it up and collect from us instead of the industries, then Television will be ad-free. (Can you imagine? I shudder to think of it...)
Other than that improbable situation - which would no-doubt require crazy motions, plenty TV news freakouts, then it'd have to be signed into law... - no I don't think it's very likely.

And to the notion that TV is gonna be replaced by Netflix and whatnot, I don't see that happening yet. Only because not enough of the world either knows about the internet and/or the shows we watch. - Mark Zuckerberg is seeing to that issue right now. })
Yes, we're a ways away from getting everyone online, further from having everyone understand and appreciate it, and even farther than that from ad-less TV, but I think TV will hold out for that long, regardless. (Judging if its history predicts its future anyway.)